US: Pakistani man sentenced to 40 years in jail for plotting terror attacks in UK and US

A Pakistani man has been sentenced to 40 years in jail by a US court for plotting terror attacks in Manchester, New York City and Copenhagen.

Abid Naseer, 28, was arrested in 2009 along with 11 other men in the UK in 2009 for planning an attack on a shopping mall in Manchester.

He was extradited to the US in 2013, where authorities made a case against him for planning attacks in a variety of Western countries in affiliation with al-Qaeda. The plots, which prosecutors claim were co-ordinated and organised by top-level al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, included an attack on the New York subway and on newspaper offices in Copenhagen.

Evidence at the trial included information from MI5 officers, who had tracked Nasser up to his arrest in 2009, testimony from two co-conspirators who had already pleaded guilty to the subway plot, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay, and a document uncovered at Osama Bin Laden’s compound during the raid.